Wow, is it time for predictions already? Things move fast in social, and to me it seems the whole year has flown by.

Marketers are predicting that more money will be spent on social media next year because of its attractive price tag and its ability to reach consumers where they are. There is also chatter about whether Google+ will gain traction this year, and questions around how Snapchat will factor in.

Regardless of the platform, it seems that the concepts of social listening and customer support are here to stay. The changing venues of this listening may create some challenges in the customer support department as we scramble to get the feed from the latest new location. Thankfully, monitoring tools have made tremendous advances and many are able to add sites very quickly to get the data needed.

5 Social Customer Support Predictions for 2014

Measurement – Listening and engagement tools are not only developing rapidly, but specializing as well. This should enable us to move away from soft metrics on social care and get insight to some really neat things, like cost per transaction, handle time, and the like.

First Stop: Social Media – Historically, many customers reached out on social media out of frustration with traditional channels, and as a last resort. As social care proves to be a handy option, I think we might see some customers head straight for social media.

Push for Faster Response Times – Customers want responses right now. Engagement tools are increasingly able to help us respond more quickly. Seems we may see a trend toward decreasing response times.

More Volume, Staffing Increase – As our friends in marketing spend more ad dollars on social (as their 2014 predictions say), and customers come to us first expecting faster response times (boy I’m starting to feel like that song, “On the first day of Christmas” where the list gets longer and longer), we’ll probably need more staff to support that. Take those good operational metrics with you when you ask for that headcount; you’ll probably need them!

Integration – Now that social care is established and collecting customer feedback, expect that feedback to be integrated into other departments.

So, what about this concept that if everyone is complaining, it should start to matter less as our senses dull? I do agree that with so many customers sharing their brand experiences it may be more challenging for stories to go viral; however I don’t think that provides any safety to companies. It seems that the general impression your brand makes on consumers as a whole may rise above the din of countless individual stories to leave a lasting impression. We saw this with the cancelled Chase Bank #AskJPM Twitter Q&A. Though you may not have read every comment, the overall sentiment was pretty clear.

I’m excited to see what 2014 holds for social customer support. We have the opportunity to be personal at scale, and then understand what our customers are telling us to better serve their needs.

As an update, I think I lost. Or we both did. It certainly feels that way, because we’re breaking up. The goal here was really to have Chase correct a process that appeared broken. You heard the first part of the story in my last blog post, Chase Ambushes My Twitter IPO Trade with Poor Customer Service. Here’s what happened next.

That same night I complied with the bank’s instructions and, after the kids went to bed, I got online and requested the wire transfer again. I received another lovely confirmation number. I then wrote an email to Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase and it read:

Jaime,

Today I had a poor experience with a risk policy Chase has in place. While the branch staff was understanding and the Twitter support staff responded quickly, I thought I’d let you know this experience is prompting me to take my business elsewhere after more than 10 years as a customer. I’m attaching the blog post I wrote to document the event. wp.me/p3jcDY-92

Take care

Yesterday morning I checked online and the transfer had not yet completed. I called the security department and was interrogated for a few minutes before being told that my trade, placed at 8:05pm, was in queue to be approved. Later I received a call from Kati in Jamie’s executive escalations office. She seemed fully informed and ready to help. I provided her the update that more than a dozen hours later, the second wire transfer was not yet approved. She said she would call me back after her investigation.

When Twitter was ready to trade, I, sadly, was not.

Around 3pm I received a call from a cheery gentleman at E*Trade, just wanting to let me know my wire transfer had been received and was ready for trading. Boy, E*Trade has some great customer service, don’t they? That was pretty neat. To be fair, my nice branch manager called me around 1pm and I was unable to take her call. Maybe she would have told me the transfer was complete. So, we’ll say 17 hours for the wire transfer to be approved.

Right after 5pm, I received a call back from Kati. She said she would waive all the wire transfer fees for me, but indicated that the Chase process was followed and working as designed. I almost fell out of my seat. Kati said that all trades had to be rejected by 4pm, and that her team did try to call to confirm. I asked if she had checked the time of those calls, and she said she’d have to look. I shared with her that the calls came at 3:47pm and 3:49pm while I was on a conference call. So 13 minutes before they blocked web access and rejected my trade. Kati seemed unmoved and indicated the department may get backed up at times. I also explained to her that making me place the trade again myself after they ambushed it was really a poor customer experience, and the entire process could use revisiting. I explained if procedure didn’t change, that meant this could happen to me again. And by continuing to bank with Chase, I would essentially be consenting to that. I would be saying it’s more important the security process be convenient for Chase, and that it’s ok to treat me as guilty until proven innocent by “stepping” into a branch.

Well, I can’t consent to that. So, based on my conversation with Kati (which to me is the same as speaking with Jamie Dimon because if you email him, you get Kati), I have come to the conclusion that I am an acceptable loss to Chase bank. So, with a bit of sadness, after more than 10 years, we’re breaking up.

Last night my family and I stayed in a Hampton Inn in Greenwood, Mississippi. It’s a small town on Highway 82. There are several hotels in town, many with (I’m fairly certain) comparable amenities and features. I do recall the bed being pretty comfortable. But that’s not the most memorable part of the stay.

The most memorable part of our stay was Mary. The Hampton Inn offers free breakfast like so many hotel chains do these days. Ours in Greenwood had a rather nice setup, with just about everything you could want, short of a line cook and a hot grill. As my family and I wandered in, Mary came straight out to meet us. She said good morning. She doted over the kids. She made meal suggestions and pointed us to utensils and extra napkins. As a matter of fact, Mary came out of the kitchen every time a guest came through and treated them as though they were relatives in her very own kitchen at her own house. And not the relatives you wish would leave, but the favorite ones you’ve been waiting to see, and really hope have a good time and want to come back.

Before we left, Mary came out with a couple apples and bananas. She said we should take them for the girls, you know, in case they got hungry later in the car. We drove several more hours before making it back to Atlanta, unloaded the car and got situated, and I’m still thinking about Mary.

There were other positive things about the hotel stay, too. The night clerk (I didn’t catch her name) was very nice when I rang down and asked if I could stop by to pick up extra shampoo. She had a few bottles waiting for me at the front desk by the time I got down, and made sure to ask if I needed anything else and assure me that anything I needed, I should let her know.

So… you know what’s frustrating? I was so pleased with Mary that I wanted to let Hampton Inn know right away. I mean, as my husband drove us out of the parking lot I was on the iPhone looking for their Facebook page to tell them. And I couldn’t find them. Well, really, they had many custom pages for different particular hotels, one page that could have been them but it was hard to tell on the phone view. And then when I visited the site I couldn’t clearly find a place for compliments or suggestions. With cell reception in Greenwood being what it is, the slow speed got me frustrated and I decided it would have to wait. The result being that I’m blogging before I’m able to let Mary’s employers know that she is awesome.

My suggestion is to make feedback easy for customers. Where’s your Facebook page? Can I find it? Do I know it’s really the one I’m looking for? Is it easy to find you on Twitter? Don’t make me email you. Don’t make me mail you a letter. That sounds hard. You may miss out on my compliments.

I will do those things for Mary, because man, that lady was awesome. If you’re looking for someone to really make your guests feel at home, run out to the Hampton Inn in Greenwood, MS around breakfast time and go see Mary. But if you want to know before my blog readers do that you already have a Mary in your employ, I suggest you make feedback really easy.

Speaking of personifying brand image, a great way to do this is with photos of your support team displayed proudly on your customer support tab. I’ve seen this done a few ways.

One popular choice is a static group shot depicting the entire social media customer support team. These look good, and I think customers may perceive a sense of closeness among team members. The image can convey to a customer “We are a close team, and if another team member helped you before, I can pick up seamlessly where she left off.” On the other hand, any team turnover on the team causes you to break out the camera again.

Another approach I’ve seen is individual head shots of each team member. Some layouts allow the visitor to click-through to different team members, while others automatically scroll. Sometimes short bios are included, but I’m not convinced these are necessary. I think I like it better when the agent’s name is displayed simply with the head shot. With individual shots, I think using the same background for each photo helps add a consistent feel.

In either case, I think reps wearing crisp polos in company colors with the company logo adds a nice touch. It helps team members look pulled together. Professional photography looks best, but if that isn’t practical in keeping up with each team member, try to develop consistent guidelines around how to shoot the pictures. Use the same location, the same chair, have the photographer a set distance from the person being photographed, etc. Also, I would recommend getting formal releases from each employee and keeping them on file.

So, grab your team, grab a camera, and take some photos. Happy snapping!

This may seem obvious, but I think it deserves stating. In social media, especially in a corporate social media channel, it’s so important to sign your name at the end of your post. If you are using a page or handle that other people also use, make sure there is a signature on that post.

Social media is the perfect vehicle to personify brand image with cheery, helpful customer support representatives. Customers can develop a relationship with the person that helps them, and warm feelings associated with a particular representative are then (hopefully) associated to the brand itself. If you can achieve this, you have something special going on with your social presence.

In order for this personification to occur, the customer must be able to identify the person they are interacting with and remember that person. People cannot identify with or build a relationship with a nameless string of text coming at them through social media. People can identify with Patty, or Bob, or Sarah.